At the risk of being seriously repetitive, I'll post a question I have seen in various forms for approximately 3.5 years. The user community needs to have a specific, fact-based answer to the problem of no x64 support on Windows. In several threads one can find via Google, people purporting to be Oracle representatives claim a supported version will be available "soon". Soon in my neck of the woods generally means a time frame less than 3 years, but what do I know. Can someone please, please provide a definitive statement of direction on this issue, and assuming this is coming "soon", it would be overwhelmingly wonderful to have a specific date. My company plans/desires/hopes to release software that would embed an Oracle Express db, and frankly I'm about to throw in the towel if I can't get some visibility to this question. As I've heard from many ex customers, "there's always Sql Server".

There is no official support for XE, this forum is about as close as one can get to having an "official" support channel.

Updating for x64 Win is not very high on the priorities list either, and with 11.2.0.2, the version used in XE, final RDBMS patching is scheduled for October 2013. I would hope something would happen by then, maybe an x64 Win with 11.2.0.3, or maybe not until a version 12 release is out for XE.

Could be a while, no telling how long. Hopefully someone with better info will keep us updated.

Thanks for the update. I followed up with Oracle internally via our Oracle Partnership channel, and they checked with the VP of development responsible for XE. The official response is "there is no date where this will be provided for Windows x64. It is, however, under consideration." In my 25+ years of working with Oracle, I will give you my translation - it is not going to happen anytime soon, and to your point, it will probably be version 12 before you see anything. For us, this is a huge disappointment, and it means we will be abandoning many thing with Oracle. It's my view that they don't care about this vertical one bit.